I will be putting together an Ivy Bridge system on a (probably) MSI Z77 board. I'd like to use a heatpipe cooler (ie Corsair A70 or Coolermaster Hyper 212) but I've heard that they can sometimes have problems with overlapping the RAM chips, especially those with tall heatsinks. A few questions:

1) Is the interference generally avoided by using regular profile memory? 4x4Gb appears to be cheaper than 2x8GB and more options are available for bargain hunters like myself.

2) If there is a physical conflict with tall RAM heatsinks, is it usually limited to just the first first RAM slot? If I need to get 2x8GB to avoid problems, I will.

3) Is the interference usually just due the 120mm fan? If so, then I can just run a single fan config and just get whatever good RAM is on sale at the time and not worry about it?

I can only comment on what I found with the Asus Z77 board. The 812 cooler blocked the first 2 slots and my ram with heatsink was too tall. End result: I had to purchase additional standard (non-heatsink) ram to go into the first two slots. In my case, the interference was due to the fins, not just the fan.

With standard ram, you should be fine (mine hasn't arrived yet, but it looks like there is space for it...).

May I recommend this RAM? The advertised timings aren't that great, but it's Samsung's relatively new 30nm DDR3 and it's getting rave reviews for its low price and impressive overclocking headroom. And it's low-profile, too!

meanfriend wrote:I will be putting together an Ivy Bridge system on a (probably) MSI Z77 board. I'd like to use a heatpipe cooler (ie Corsair A70 or Coolermaster Hyper 212) but I've heard that they can sometimes have problems with overlapping the RAM chips, especially those with tall heatsinks. A few questions:

1) Is the interference generally avoided by using regular profile memory? 4x4Gb appears to be cheaper than 2x8GB and more options are available for bargain hunters like myself.

Yes.

meanfriend wrote:2) If there is a physical conflict with tall RAM heatsinks, is it usually limited to just the first first RAM slot? If I need to get 2x8GB to avoid problems, I will.

The Coolermaster Hyper 212 only interferes with the first DIMM slot on the motherboards I have but I've been able to avoid the problem by moving the fan to the back of the heatsink. The way the fan clips on, you can also just position it higher on the heatsink to avoid the RAM.

meanfriend wrote:3) Is the interference usually just due the 120mm fan? If so, then I can just run a single fan config and just get whatever good RAM is on sale at the time and not worry about it?

The fan on the Hyper 212 Evo just barely overlaps with the first DIMM, but there is just over 1cm of clearance with regular ram so there is still plenty of room to accommodate memory with heatsink/fins that are not stupidly long.

Nice cooler for <$30. Seems to be be very quiet so far and and Ivy Bridge 3570K idling at 31C (17-18 ambient).

and you can also twist the hyper 212 so that its lined up front to back(i had it pointing up and down for the top fan in my antec 900). i have a cheap micro atx board that had issues with big ram sinks, turned my hyper 212 90 degreez, viola.